Brand Strategy Is Not BS
Although Brand strategy can be abbreviated to BS, I assure you it is (in fact) not BS! These days, “strategy” is such a buzzword in the business world that it’s losing its finesse. Perhaps your eyes even glaze over when you see the term “brand strategy” used in a sentence. Now you may be thinking, “Jess, brand strategy sounds fancy, but it also sounds expensive and I doubt I need it. Why do you insist on starting with brand strategy and what the heck is it?”
Well, I’m glad you asked.
Take a moment to think about the brands you support, utilize, and engage with regularly. Every product you buy and every service you hire doesn’t just have a brand — it is a brand. A brand is built around an ecosystem of supporting elements designed to influence and shape the experience people have when engaging with it. In other words, branding is perception. This ecosystem often includes visual communications tools such as brand marks (logos), typography, colours, illustrations, packaging, social media, websites, photos, videos, copywriting, etc. It’s easy to believe that these are the primary components that make up a brand, but as I said, these are supporting elements. Don’t get me wrong, the visual representation of a brand is necessary and should be taken seriously, but it tends to lack substance without strategy.
I like to think of brand strategy like the foundation of a house. A foundation isn’t generally something you see, but it supports all the seen aspects of a brand. A strong strategy is the groundwork for a long-lasting brand. To think of it another way, imagine you’re buying a car for a road trip. Along the journey, you’ll be encountering rough terrain, but you’re on a tight budget so you buy a fiat instead of a land rover. I’m not hating on fiats because I have one and I love it, but I’d never take it four-wheeling. On your way to your destination, your car gets beaten up and breaks down because it wasn’t designed to endure the trip. Not only are you out on the money you spent to purchase the fiat, but you are also stuck in a less-than-ideal situation. You’re too far in to turn around, but you're too far out to make it the rest of the way with your fiat. Even if you have it repaired, a temporary fix to a problem isn’t the solution. The money you spent and the money you will spend is wasted if it’s continually put towards bandaid fixes rather than a reliable solution.
Question is, how many times will you repair your fiat until you’ve expended more money, time, or energy than you would have spent if you just started with the right vehicle from the start? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stuck on the side of a road in a broken-down vehicle rather than enjoying the trip. Repeating flawed patterns and continuing to avoid the elephant in the room is problematic. The reality is, cutting corners often ends up costing you more in the long run. Even worse, cutting corners costs business and costs business eventually equals no business. If your destination is a thriving business, then it’s critical to understand that the customer determines the value — not you.
So how do we provide enough value to customers in order to retain them? How do we reach customers before our competitors do? What keeps people coming back for more? Well, I’ll tell you this much, it’s not your logo that keeps them coming back. Your logo may draw them in, but what keeps people coming back is stellar customer service and empathy (they feel understood). Bonus points if your brand contributes to a customer’s personal sense of identity, includes them in your story, and creates a tribe-like culture/community for them.
Jumping straight into brand visuals and ignoring strategy is like throwing a dart at a target blindfolded. My job is to help you uncover the truth about your customer’s internal desires around your product or service so you can understand what you’re aiming for.
Let’s take off the blindfold, buy the right vehicle for the journey, and set the foundation before building the house. Enough metaphors for you? Ok, let’s get into the details.
Seriously, what is brand strategy for real?
Step one is a client questionnaire to get you thinking about your ideal client in preparation for our brand clarity workshop. You’ll be able to fill out the questionnaire and book your workshop through a portal provided on Notion. During our time together we’ll:
Discuss why you started your business, your mission, and your values
Dive into who your audience is and what they struggle with
Determine your priorities and specific business goals
Take an objective look at your brand, community, and competition
Build your brand's personality and what makes your business unique
Craft messaging for a branded value journey
And identify the best aesthetics to visually convey your brand
I don’t just start with brand strategy because it informs the visual direction of a brand — I also use it as a point of entry for my clients. I like to break down my process into separate phases. We start with brand strategy, level up to brand identity, move onto a website, then add additional collateral on an as-needed basis.
It’s important to note that I don’t offer my services in just any order. Rather, each service is a prerequisite for the next phase: strategy leads to identity, identity leads to a website, and a website leads to collateral. If at any point in the process you decide not to move forward, you won’t be knee-deep in a massive contract you’re only halfway through. Each phase has its own contract so after completing one phase, you’ll be able to choose whether or not to continue to the next one.
Upon completing brand strategy together, I’m sure you’ll be ready to jump into identity, but either way, I’m confident that the brand strategy process will serve your business well.